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My little space on the web where I blog about comics and comic books, drawing and illustration, graphic design, writing stories, and a few tips and tutorials from time to time about them. I'll also share bits about movies, theater, music, (maybe even cooking!) and whatever strikes my fancy.

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Paula Abdul's prowess as a singer can't be characterized as superior, but her ditties are funky and friendly. In an interview, she proudly said that she wanted to "sing songs that other people can sing." Undoubtedly, for someone who admitted having difficulty with that one high note in Rush Rush, she doesn’t have much of an impressive range. My best friend and I used to joke that she’d be thanking Macintosh computers if she ever won a vocals award.

But Abdul is still, to me, was one of the best dance divas of the late 80s and early 90s. When I caught her very first video The Way That You Love Me back in my late teenage years, I was immediately enthralled by her fancy footwork. Sadly, that single didn’t make great waves then, barely breaking the top 30 of Billboard. (It was later re-released, peaking at #4.)

Across three studio albums, the former Laker girl racked up seven number one hits on Billboard: Straight Up, Forever Your Girl, Cold Hearted, Opposit…

The Big IdeaOne of my favorite theater exercises is called “The Authority Figure.” A topic would be assigned to a participant who in turn would be given a minute to talk about the topic will full authority and conviction, and as little pauses, um’s and ah’s as possible. It was an interesting exercise because the facilitator would always hand out odd topics, like the mating rites of snails or some such. It’s supposed to hone workshoppers’ spontaneity, a very important skill used in masking onstage booboos.

I was reminded of the exercise after playing a modified version of Cheapass Games’ “The Big Idea” with the gang last Saturday night at Country Waffles Annapolis. Modified because, since we didn’t have dice or chips, we had to make up our own game lest we died of boredom.

The game features two decks of cards. The cards of one deck were labeled with products (e.g. Beer, Organizer) and the cards of the other deck were labeled with descriptors (e.g. Motivational, Instant). In our modifie…

I’ve long vowed to myself that “doing the nasty” would only be limited to those with whom I have romantic relations. It’s relatively old-fashioned, yes, but it’s the only way to go as far as I’m concerned. Last week, that changed. Mutual attraction is one thing, but it’s another thing when there’s a connection that goes beyond the physical, when you feel that somehow you’ve known each other for so long even if you’ve only been together for two days. It’s a happy-land magical feeling. And when that connection is consummated, the experience is uplifting. We’re not in love and we don’t have a relationship, and at this point I’m not harboring any delusions about it. I don’t even know if he’ll ever set foot on this end of the world again. Call us fuck buddies or friends with benefits, a two-nights stand, I don’t care. What matters to me is that those two short days with him single-handedly cleaned off the last stubborn scabs left by the last relationship. So I have been reaffirmed in a maj…

This is way weird. While looking through the sites of some of the folks who've stumbled upon this blog, I saw a Livejournal entry that says that I'll be editing some comic book, and the LJ account owner was excited to draw a story that's supposed to be part of it.

I have absolutely no knowledge of this. While there are a number of Carlo Vergara's out there in the world (one's a basketball player in Cebu, and another's a website designer in the US), the link in the journal entry goes to this blog.

Can someone fill me in on this? Has someone been planning my life again?

Woke up at 10 in the morning, with a good two and a half hours sleep, to meet David Hontiveros for updates and banter. For two days, my body clock had found the call center mode. I'd sleep before lunch and wake up around 8 pm. Not good, unless I go for call center employment. So meeting up wih David for lunch seemed like an excellent way to make a readjustment.

Lunch was at Piadina - Megamall, and we talked for almost four hours over pizza (everything on it) and pasta (Italian sausage). If there's one thing I like about not seeing someone in a while, it'd be the abundance of subjects waiting for their chance at conversation. The four hours just flew by. Nakakabitin.

I headed for gym after. Chest, shoulders and triceps day, a relatively good session, though not as good as last week's leg day. I rushed to GNC to get a fresh supply of whey protein (MyoPro), enough for two-plus months. The housemates freaked out at the size of the jug.

Our Southeast Asian neighbors Thailand and Indonesia have bagged Olympic medals in weightlifting. The Philippines, on the other hand, has fielded bets in archery, athletics, boxing, shooting, swimming and taekwondo and the results have not been very encouraging.

Any athlete from any country can still win big in his or her chosen sport, but I wonder why the Philippines hasn't focused on other relatively cheaper non-contact sports. Weightlifting is an example. Not a lot of equipment requirements there. We can bank on our machismo by getting all those hefty kargadors to sign up for the sport.

Now I have nothing against the standard speed-based swimming competitions, I believe we're still ways away from winning a truckload of medals in those events. Why not synchronized swimming?! All you need is a pool and some water-friendly acrobatic citizens. Heck, the government can sign up those exotic swimmers from that hotel (Sulu Hotel, I believe) th…

I want to cleave the shadows that film your eyes, that you may see this broken man healing. There is an autumn flowing from your fingers as they touch, and a storm coursing through your embrace. It lifts me, your autumn storm. It lifts us, far from the deluge, with burdens shed in ochre and auburn and gold.

As this moment begins, we behold the universe as it weeps. Let stars trickle from their nebula and let them cleanse us. Let me catch them in my hands and smooth them over your lips, and let me know in one kiss how hot they burn. Let me know in another the words that take shape, and the places on your skin where they need to be whispered. With you, this man wants to be smoldered.

A few days ago through my Boy Zone trek, a Mitsubishi Adventure slowed down beside me, just short of stopping. It moved on, made the roundabout, and slowed down beside me again. Perhaps I wasn’t yummy enough for him, for he moved on, stopped near a fresh-looking thang and lowered his window. Fresh Thang approached Adventure, but I wasn’t able to make anything out of their conversation. Adventure soon sped off without Fresh Thang; the bargaining proceedings must’ve been faulty.

After gym and coffee last night, I walked home, passing by the Boy Zone as usual, and the selections were surprisingly quite plentiful. I counted five, two of whom were standing in the shadows of some selected tree, one sitting visibly by the sidewalk, and two in mobile mode. They were all well within spurting distance, but I didn’t dare look at any of their faces.

One of the mobile agents had a brilliant strategy: “I will walk ever so slowly with my shirt raised to expose my …

Congratulations to the producers and creators of Siglo:Freedom (Nautilus Comics) and Darna (Mango Comics) for each winning a National Book Award for Best Comic Book of 2003! ‘Nuff said.

The National Book Award ceremony was held last Saturday in a makeshift and fragile function room that stood at the far end of the 25th Philippine Bookfair area. I arrived at around 6:30 pm, thirty minutes after the event started, just in time to hear another awardee stressing during her acceptance speech that the award was bestowed upon her “deserving book.” That’s confidence for you.

Since I wasn’t in the function room, only viewing the proceedings through its plastiglass windows, I took some time to wander and chit-chat with Jason on other creative endeavors. The Bookfair was surprisingly and not surprisingly scant of visitors. Surprising because it’s still the Bookfair, and not surprising because the World Trade Center didn’t have the benefit of Megamall’s Saturday crowd.

During comics seminars, I’d usually stress the three important C’s of comic book illustration. These are: clarity, cleanliness, and consistency.

Clarity of illustration enables a reader to know what exactly goes on in a panel sequence. It shows the ability of the artist to depict in two dimensions what is supposed to be an action occurring in three-dimensional space.

Cleanliness doesn’t necessarily mean clean lines. Works from artists such as Dave McKean, Duncan Fegredo, and Ash Wood are clean in the sense that there is a certainty involved, in that the artists knew exactly what they wanted to achieve and how to go about it. Cleanliness doesn’t only involve certainty of style, but also certainty of lay-out and composition, where all elements are planned out before execution. In being clean, ‘mistakes’ don’t look like mistakes, and artistic shortcuts blend well with the overall page.

Consistency is sought to prevent hiccups in the readers’ intake of an artist’s work. When an a…

Saturday night videoke was a blast with special guest Jaime Bautista of Nautilus Comics working his vocals into our motley symphony. Now I dare say that apart from Elbert Or, Jaime’s got one crush-worthy voice. I never imagined I’d be swooning over Quit Playing Games With My Heart, sung by Jaime, Elbert and Vin.

Here’s a crazy thought, one that’s been floating around for some time now: a fund-raising concert featuring our very own comic stars! I know that Nil Yu (Superman: Birthright) has a band, and there is the J Brothers Band who churned out Exodus in the mid-nineties. Andrew Drilon had mentioned that he and some peeps were assembling one of their own. And I’d like to think that there are folks from Mango Comics, Culture Crash, Questor Extreme Mangamania, etc., who have some talent unbeknownst to the waking world. Hmmm… who else?

Just thinking out loud, here are some of our possible contributions to the “Mukhang Komiks” concert:

Huzzah! Huzzah! Two pages left to do for Siglo: Passion. Twelve pages all drawn, colored and lettered. Now I’m not a colorist per se, but the color requirement for the Siglo story is pretty basic, all warm and fiery. You have to see it to know what I mean.

There’s something to be said about the dude who throws the “one-woman policy” card on the table. As far as I know, adultery is already punishable under our laws. What’s next, a “one-sexual-partner-policy” to satisfy those who subscribe to gender equality? And what of the single folk who go about their hormone-driven activities? Going to the extreme, will a one-sexual-partner policy apply to homosexual couples who can’t possibly have children (at least by current technologies)?

This ludicrous initiative clearly veers away from the problem at hand. A one-woman policy does not directly solve …

Most of you must have tried out at least one of those Excel-based quizzes. I particularly liked the one where you match the tagline with the brand, and the one where you match the lyrics with the song.

I got another one from a friend. This simple test determines the career best suited for you by simply typing in your name. Here are the results, just for fun:

I was at the Alabang Town Center last Saturday with the folks of Nautilus Comics for the last weekend leg of the Comics Creation Seminar series. I wasn’t able to sleep the night before for some strange reason, so I dozed off a few times en route to the venue.

The session had a good turn out given the space of Powerbooks-ATC, and the participants were an attentive bunch. Even if my trusty Powerpoint presentation wasn’t available, I did my best to throw in as much insight and information as I could.

There are a lot of young ‘uns and not-so-young ‘uns who want to get into the game, and it’s all encouraging. Hopefully a number of them will be able to see their dreams through. During the seminar, I told the audience my little story of how I, while talking to David Hontiveros on the phone in 1993, bawled buckets questioning the worth of this comics-making crap. It really takes a lot of determination and passion to complete projects, especially for artists, especially since…

I've had a long and fruitful career in graphic design, article writing, and magazine art direction, and I've dabbled in theatre acting, playwriting, and teaching in university. But Fate led me to making comics, where I've found unexpected and flattering success.